


Lying in the Bed We Made

by CourtneyCourtney



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Angst, Clothed Sex, Dubious Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Hand Jobs, Infidelity, Multiple Orgasms, Sex Pollen, Wall Sex, Woman on Top
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-03
Updated: 2015-02-03
Packaged: 2018-03-10 07:11:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3281477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CourtneyCourtney/pseuds/CourtneyCourtney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“They must have made it wrong,” Jarvis says hoarsely, still sprawled across the foot of the bed.  “When they were replicating Howard’s formula.  It was supposed to be a nerve gas of sorts.”</p><p>Peggy laughs a short, humorless laugh.  “Nerve gas would have been the more desirable alternative in this situation.”</p><p>(or, Peggy and Jarvis get doused with military-grade aphrodisiac and have to deal with the fallout, physically and emotionally)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lying in the Bed We Made

**Author's Note:**

> While I never expected this story to fit perfectly into canon, I’ll note now that I started writing it between “Time and Tide” (1.03) and “The Blitzkrieg Button” (1.04). Internal timeline-wise, this would fit best between 1.02 and 1.03 since the MacGuffin of the Week plot is over already. Just pretend there were more escapades before the end of “Time and Tide.”
> 
> *Nitpicked for typos and missing words/punctuation on 2/4/15. Please let me know if I missed anything major.

The formula’s lack of an aura is the first clue something is amiss. Peggy thinks it’s silly in hindsight, but all of the inventions she’s recovered for Howard thus far have had an eerie glow. The substance in the vial this goon is holding is a lurid, swirling green, but it isn’t bright enough.

She hadn’t expected anybody at the warehouse this time of night. She and Jarvis waited nearly an hour after the last car left the warehouse’s lot, watching suspicious-looking men file out but never in until they were certain nobody would stop them from sleuthing. It’s the primary reason she let Jarvis accompany her inside.

If anyone else in the (admittedly shady) neighborhood had bothered to walk more than five meters into the landscape of unmarked crates, they would have easily found the makeshift laboratory Peggy and Jarvis were there to search. All Peggy was after was one written formula -- one lousy scrap of paper Jarvis had argued wasn’t worth going after compared to some of Howard’s other inventions on the market – but if the nitramine incident had proven anything it was that given the blueprint, there was always somebody who would try making their own chemical weapons.

“At least this one shouldn’t implode half of New York if produced,” Jarvis notes, rifling through a stack of papers they found in a makeshift office near the north side of the warehouse, its walls merely stacks of crates.

“Indeed,” Peggy remarks sarcastically, “allowing people to burn from the inside out is always the more elegant solution.”

A metallic _bang_ sounds from across the room, followed by the clunk of work boots on concrete, slowly growing louder. Peggy is on her feet with her gun drawn in a second, aiming it toward their ‘office’s’ entrance.

The hired guard that rounds the corner can’t be older than seventeen. He takes one look at Peggy and turns, sprinting off in the direction he came from.

“ _HEY_!” Peggy takes off after him, Jarvis on her heels. They corner the kid near the exit, Peggy thankful he’s more scared of them than they are of him. With luck on her side, he’ll be ratting out his employers in five minutes, tops.

Then the grunt grabs the closest container he can get his hands on. Peggy swears.

After the war, Howard had been one of the Allies allotted some of the German’s recovered nerve agent bullets. Peggy, for the record, did not support this (boneheaded) decision. Howard has yet to meet a weapon he doesn’t like or think he can improve upon. Despite his insistence it was purely for scientific inquiry, Peggy knew he was going to do something stupid. So when one of his stolen inventions _happened to be_ a formula for a prototype nerve gas, she was not surprised in the least. Combining sarin and tabun would not end well if someone tried replicating the written recipe, and of course, someone had been foolish enough to try.

Behind her, Jarvis has his hands up, but Peggy won’t go down like this, not without a fight.

“Who are you working for?” Peggy trains her gun on the guard. The lackey opens his mouth as if to speak, then all too rapidly changes his mind. He pulls a kerchief over his face and throws the bottle on the ground in front of Peggy before she or Jarvis can react.

Peggy doesn’t wait, charging forward as the vial falls. She’s practically on top of it when the gas begins rising, and she hears more than she feels the crunch of glass under her reinforced boots.

The hired mook is fast, but Peggy’s faster. She tackles him a few meters outside the exit, the side of his head swiftly meeting the butt of her gun. He’s out like a light before Peggy remembers her plan with a grimace.

Behind her, Peggy hears one set of footsteps on the asphalt and a quiet rustling, like paper being folded. “So much for that interrogation,” Jarvis says, stopping to stand over her and the goon on the ground. “Unless this is a part of your process I have yet to comprehend.”

Peggy glares over her shoulder, ready with a retort. She’s met with Jarvis’s outstretched hand offering her a sizeable length of rope.

Sighing, she empties the lackey’s pockets, tossing Jarvis his wallet. “Care to make yourself useful?” she asks, then sets to work tying up the unconscious enforcer.

When she finishes, Peggy stands and finds Jarvis jotting the man’s personal information down in a small notebook. He pockets both pad and pen, then hands the wallet back to Peggy, who returns it to its owner. The boys at the SSR won’t appreciate her poking around on a Saturday night, but come Monday she’ll have notes to compare with their database in case she gets nothing tonight.

“I dare say, compared to some of our latest inquiries, this is going smoothly,” Jarvis says.

It’s about at that time Peggy hears the wail of incoming sirens. Already she can see red lights reflecting off nearby buildings, and like hell is she going to stick around to see if it’s the police or her co-workers.

“Would you care to reassess that statement?” Peggy asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Would you care to ring for a cab home instead?” Jarvis asks in return.

Peggy gives him a withering look, then takes off running without waiting for Jarvis to follow. She knows he will.

*******

“For the last time, Miss Carter,” Jarvis sighs, “I did not alert anyone to our whereabouts, not before we left, and certainly not after. I was a bit preoccupied helping you hogtie the guard.”

Peggy rolls her eyes at him in the rearview mirror. He doesn’t sound truly bothered. Peggy certainly isn’t – unexpected guests aside, this _was_ a rather productive night. The thieves’ lair was flushed out, authorities were cleaning the place up, one more of Howard’s inventions had found its way back to their side, and, traffic willing, Peggy will make curfew for once this week. The watch she borrowed from Angie reads 9:43 PM.

What Peggy really wants right now is to interrogate the man they collared. Instead she changes out of her slacks and back into her work skirt. Miss Fry won’t know what hit her when Peggy waltzes in before ten wearing house-appropriate attire.

She’s debating whether she should bother with her stockings or not when Jarvis swerves. It’s a momentary lapse, the car’s left tires crossing into the oncoming lane for a second, but Peggy rolls to the floor and pulls out her gun, on alert.

Slowly, Peggy rises to kneel on the backseat, careful to keep out of sight, and checks the road behind them for a tail. After a minute with no suspicious activity, she whirls forward to glare at Jarvis.

“Watch it!” Peggy admonishes. “I should think you of all people would be more concerned about being pulled over with a half-naked woman who isn’t your wife in the backseat of your car.”

Jarvis doesn’t reply. Peggy doesn’t relax, continuing to check the rearview mirror for signs of trouble, but she regains her composure. “Something on your mind?” she asks as casually as possible. Perhaps they’re being monitored; perhaps he’s only distracted…

Jarvis hisses as if in pain, and Peggy’s blood runs cold. She’s finally, _finally_ gotten him hurt. She can’t tell from her position where he’s been injured. Peggy struggles to remember how anything could have possibly happened with one useless guard she had taken out in minutes before she remembers the nerve gas. She remembers Jarvis standing in place while she was running, staying behind in the warehouse to look for Howard’s formula as the fumes evaporated.

“Jarvis, pull over,” Peggy demands.

“I assure you, I am quite fine,” Jarvis says. The statement would be more convincing if he sounded capable of spitting out more than those seven words. The car keeps darting into light then into shadows, but Peggy can tell he’s paler than usual, his knuckles white on the steering wheel.

“Like hell you are,” Peggy mutters under her breath before repeating her request. “Pull over.”

“I promised I would have you back – “

“Oh curfew be damned,” Peggy snarls at him. She focuses on the street signs they speed past until she recognizes the direction they’re heading.

She waits until they’re near Howard’s penthouse, the one she remembers Jarvis citing as his ‘private entertaining’ flat, before putting her heels on sans stockings and leaning forward into the front of the car.

“Pull over,” she demands once more, nodding toward the building looming ahead of them, and this time Jarvis doesn’t argue.

 *******

The lift is halfway to their floor when Peggy realizes her heart is well and truly racing. She’s been telling herself since they entered the building that she was only worried about Jarvis, but her heart rate keeps increasing despite repeated mental admonishments to keep a level head.

Jarvis’s hands are shaking. Peggy’s are too, but she doesn’t notice until she tries to open the penthouse door. It takes her too many attempts to get the handle twisted properly, but if Jarvis notices he doesn’t say anything.

“It must have been the nerve agent,” Jarvis says, loosening his tie as Peggy sets her briefcase down by the entryway. “I thought it was merely ineffective but it would seem that is not the case anymore. Are you faring alright?”

Peggy deflects the question. “You read the files, yes? How long until the nerve agent is supposed to take effect?”

Jarvis looks at her with fear in his eyes. “Its effects are supposed to be immediate.”

Peggy frowns and checks her wristwatch. It’s 10:05 P.M.

“Is there any way to neutralize the effects?” she asks, thinking of the nitramine. Jarvis doesn’t answer, and when she looks up she sees he’s fumbling with his right jacket pocket.

“Did you get a look at the written copy of the formula?” Jarvis asks, finally producing a square of paper from his suit coat.

Peggy sees it before he points – a water stain across the bottom left quadrant.

“They must have made it wrong,” Jarvis says, holding the page closer then farther away from his face. Peggy wonders if it’s due to his lack of glasses or a side effect from the toxin. “The manufacturers must have tried compensating for the missing information by adding the wrong ingredient, or not enough of one ingredient—“

“Or too much of one ingredient.” Peggy finds her vision is starting to swim. She’s on the verge of asking to move this conversation to the sitting room when Jarvis sways forward. Peggy rushes to catch him, propping him back up against the nearest wall.

“I’m alright,” Jarvis says, “quite alright.” Maybe he sounds fine, but Peggy wouldn’t know. All she hears is ringing in her ears and the sound of her own heart beating much too loud. Her blood is on fire, and she _knows_. She knows the nerve gas is finally kicking in. Peggy forces herself not to panic, to stay upright despite her unsteady legs and blurry sight.

She doesn’t realize until then that she’s still supporting Jarvis. His forehead is resting against her forehead, his gaze filled with worry. Peggy wants to reassure him, tell him they’re going to be fine, but she can’t. She can’t stop staring at his parted lips, either. He’s practically breathing on her face, but she doesn’t care. She just wants.

Peggy can’t say who initiated the kiss. Guiltily she hopes it wasn’t her (she’ll keep enough of that night on her conscience already). The grip she has on his lapels says otherwise.

It’s a dizzy whirl of attraction and exhilaration, and it’s good but it needs to be more. Peggy pulls on his jacket, his shirt collar, his belt loops, willing Jarvis closer. She wants him to be everywhere and everything. Jarvis pushes her backwards, his lips never leaving hers, and she sighs into him when her back hits the wall.

Jarvis drops his head to mouth at her neck, his lips tracing where her blouse meets her collarbone. His hands, which had found her waist quickly enough, move without much preamble to her ass.

Peggy wraps one leg around his waist, testing her luck. She can feel his cock, hard and hot beneath the tweed fabric of his slacks. She bucks her hips against him once before Jarvis pushes her leg back down.

Addled as she is, Peggy is slightly offended and seconds away from giving her partner a piece of her mind when she notices his hands are making their way under the front of her skirt. They come to rest at the waistband of her underwear, his fingers brushing hot where flesh meets fabric. Peggy can feel him breathing harshly against her collarbone. Carefully, she threads her fingers into his hair and forces his head up until they’re face to face.

Jarvis looks at her like he’s asking permission, his eyes glassy and his pupils blown wide.

In response Peggy reaches between them and undoes his belt. She works it off, unbuttons his trousers, and unzips his fly in the time it takes Jarvis to work her knickers down her hips. Peggy pushes his hands away to finish the job herself, kicking them off to the side before pulling Jarvis in close once more.

Jarvis only gets his pants halfway down his legs before Peggy is on him, stroking his prick. She swiftly coats his shaft with precome before wrapping one leg back around his waist and guiding him into her cunt. They both groan, and then Jarvis is thrusting up into her and it feels so good Peggy could cry.

Jarvis grabs the thigh he isn’t currently supporting and coaxes it up to his waist too. Peggy hooks her ankles together at the small of his back, sinking even further onto his cock. Something on the wall is digging into her shoulders, but she doesn’t care. No amount of pain is going to stop her from rocking down to meet his hips.

There’s no rhythm whatsoever, both of them moving too fast and sloppy to find the other’s tempo. That’s why Peggy is surprised when she climaxes so quickly. She could have sworn she wasn’t even wet a few minutes ago, and now… now there’s something she needs to remember, something she needs to tell Jarvis that’s on the tip of her tongue that she can’t quite recall…

Despite her spasms, Jarvis doesn’t stop (she didn’t expect him to), and her first orgasm rolls into a second. Her toes curl, and Peggy faintly realizes she’s still wearing her heels. Jarvis comes with a shout moments later, nearly dropping her when his knees buckle.

They slide down to the floor together. The ringing in Peggy’s ears is only getting louder, and she suddenly finds it difficult to breathe. She squeezes her eyes shut tight and focuses on inhaling and exhaling, counting to ten each time until the edges of her vision are no longer blurred when she opens her eyes.

Jarvis’s hands are balled into fists at his sides, his chest heaving. Peggy wants to remind him to take deeper breaths, wants to tell him how she just worked through her own dilemma. The concern disappears from her mind however when her gaze wanders to his lap and she notices he’s still erect.

“Is this a common occurrence for you?” Peggy quips, looking from his face to his cock and back. Jarvis groans in response and lets his head roll back, hitting the wall with a solid thump.

Peggy crawls over, spreading his legs as far as she can with his pants still trapped around his ankles before settling between them. With her left hand she grips his base, and with her right hand she starts pumping his shaft, twisting her wrist slightly on the downstrokes. “No wonder your wife requires you in bed so early in the evening.”

Some distant part of her brain is horrified by the words coming out of her mouth. Somewhere in the back of her mind all manner of alarms and sirens are going off.

They’re surprisingly easy to ignore, Peggy finds. There are much more important things to focus on – the slide of his skin between her hands (so slick because of _her_ ), the sweat beading along his hairline, the small grunts that sound like they’re stuck in the back of his throat when she rubs her thumb along the underside of his cock head.

“We shouldn’t,” Jarvis protests, seeming to forget they already have. Peggy spies a flash of panic in his eyes, but it’s quickly eclipsed by lust. His protest turns to moaning again, and then he’s coming on Peggy’s hands, spurting between her fingers and all across the front of her skirt. Peggy feels a flicker of concern for what she’s going to wear home but it’s immediately replaced by concern for removing her skirt in the here and now. It’s a brilliant maneuver, she thinks, and once the skirt is off it makes the most sense for the rest of her clothes to follow suit.

Jarvis seems to be on the same page, watching her undress with dark eyes while shedding his own clothes. His jacket finds its way to their shared pile of discarded clothing, but he fumbles with the buttons on his vest, and if that isn’t an invitation, Peggy doesn’t know what is. She clambers into his lap and makes quick work of both his vest and linen shirt.

Peggy laughs out loud at the sight of his undershirt. “Why in God’s name do you wear so many layers?”

“One of us has to have a sense of propriety,” Jarvis replies, his hands running up her naked sides. “Clearly, it falls to me to be the decorous one.”

Peggy smirks. “I trust you can manage that on your own then?” Without waiting for his response, she sinks back onto his already-hard cock. Jarvis jerks sharply beneath her, startled, but he strips the undershirt off. His normally slicked-back hair gets mussed in the process. Peggy appreciates the look on him, but she appreciates the look of him without his clothes on even more. She pushes him to the floor, skin finally meeting skin, and sets a new pace, fucking herself on him roughly.

“Harder,” she says, and his hips snap up obligingly.

“Harder,” she says, and his hands grip her waist tight enough to bruise.

It isn’t right, and Peggy is struggling to make it work when one of Jarvis’s hands slides between their bodies, his fingers finding her swollen clit.

“Oh _yes_ ,” she murmurs, and she’s soon shaking her way through a third orgasm, Jarvis close behind her with a gasp. Peggy slumps forward onto his chest to catch her breath.

Once her pulse stops pounding in her ears, Peggy feels a sick lurch in her stomach. Something is horribly wrong, she thinks. She can feel her blood still thrumming in her veins, her muscles tenser than usual. Turning her head to place one ear on his sternum, Peggy listens to Jarvis’s racing heartbeat. When she sits up to look at him, the sight that greets her is not good.

Jarvis’s brow is knit like he’s in pain, and his gaze is unfocused – Peggy thinks he’s trying to look at her face but he’s off by the slightest, staring over her shoulder. With a start she realizes he’s _still_ hard inside her, and his breathing is too ragged, too shallow to be healthy. (If he would only look at her she could tell him how to breathe, she would remind him, she could…)

Peggy shudders. “We should…” She doesn’t know what they should do. She’s trying to assess the situation. Peggy knows how they got from Point A to Point B, remembers the warehouse and the broken vial if she focuses hard enough, but the big picture is dodgy. She can’t grasp it, what’s happening now and what happens next and how to _fix it_ , how to make it stop.

She doesn’t realize she’s rolling her hips until Jarvis grabs them, holding her still.

“Don’t.” His voice is strangled, and he looks just as terrified as she feels. They stay that way, staring and panting, trying to find something to anchor them back in reality. His hands are burning up her skin, and Peggy can tell the exact moment the aphrodisiac kicks back in because she goes from wanting those hands _off_ to wanting them _everywhere_.

Peggy bends forward at the same time Jarvis lurches up, and their lips crash together.

Jarvis lifts her up by the waist, slowly withdrawing his cock, and Peggy knows what’s coming but she still cries out when he slams back up into her. His mouth muffles her shout.

Before long Peggy is riding him again, practically pinning him to the floor. Their movements become harsher, faster, a challenge to see who can get there first. Jarvis captures Peggy’s face between his hands and kisses her hard. He attempts to run his hands through her hair but only succeeds in ripping out most of the pins that had been holding her curls in place. They fall to the hall floor in a hail of tiny _pings_ ; Peggy swears then scratches his sides with her blood red nails in retaliation. They both climax feeling a sting.

It’s good, it’s great, but it isn’t enough. Peggy groans, starting to feel aroused again already as she rolls off Jarvis to sit beside him on the floor. Their shared silence is punctuated only by their ragged breathing. Peggy stares at the wall across the hall, feeling both empty and like something is crawling underneath her skin. There’s something she needs to focus on, something she needs to remember…

When she looks back to Jarvis she finds him already staring at her. His breathing is finally even, thank God, but his prick is hard yet again. Peggy watches it twitch, spreading more precome and their combined juices across his stomach, and her cunt clenches reflexively.

“Remembered how to breathe again, eh?” Peggy asks, her voice sounding coarse to her own ears.

Jarvis huffs in an attempt to laugh. “Indeed. I can now truly appreciate how much this floor is injuring my back.”

There’s another interval of silence before Jarvis speaks again.

“I believe there is a perfectly good bed going to waste in the next room,” he says.

“Russian sable, custom-made spread if I do recall,” Peggy adds, a grin spreading across her face.

“That would be the one,” Jarvis replies.

“Well I suppose just for one night...” Using the wall for leverage, Peggy stands and offers him a hand up.

 *******

Peggy loses track of how many times she comes, how many _ways_ she comes. With his mouth on her clit and his fingers inside her. With her own fingers inside her and her mouth on his cock. Bouncing on his lap, their faces close enough to touch, to kiss, even though they don’t.

Every time it’s the same — the rush toward climax, the crash of ecstasy, then the uncomfortable electric buzz under her skin, the abrupt feeling of dissatisfaction so soon after orgasm too jarring and upsetting to think about, they have to keep going, there has to be more, one more…

Peggy isn’t sure if she’s aching with want or just aching after their last go. She can finally, _finally_ feel the toxin wearing off, but she’s still too aroused to be satisfied, and Jarvis is still improbably hard inside of her. They’re in the same position as their last time, too tired to move.

The last time had been far too intimate, Peggy recalls with a shiver. The last time had been lazy, with Jarvis above her, rolling her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers while Peggy ran her hands through his hair. They haven’t kissed in what feels like hours, but they haven’t broken eye contact in that amount of time either. Peggy isn’t sure if that makes things better or worse.

Jarvis looks down at her like he’s calculating something. He looks as tired as she feels, but then he seems to steel his resolve. He starts pumping his hips again, setting a punishing pace. One of the hands on her chest moves down to rub at her clit, replacing the hand she has down there from last time.

Everything hurts and Peggy _can’t_ , she can’t come like this, and she opens her mouth to tell him so, but then his mouth is on her unattended breast, his teeth grazing her nipple (oh, _that’s_ new _,_ she thinks) before biting down hard.

Peggy comes even harder. She screams and thrashes, arching up once, twice, three times before falling back to the bed. More than the shock of orgasm, she feels the shock of full awareness setting back in. The static hum in her ears is gone, the haze that had seemed to cloud her vision parted.

Above her, Jarvis makes a noise like he’s been punched (Peggy wonders later if she socked him without realizing) before she feels him pulsing inside her. He comes for a long moment before pulling out, finally spent. Peggy expects him to collapse on top of her, but Jarvis manages to roll away, flopping lengthwise across the end of the bed with a groan.

It’s like a veil has lifted, Peggy finds. She doesn’t much care for it – it’s hard to value having her wits back when they’re making her acutely aware of all the sweat and come drying on her body, of the soreness in every single muscle. She knows in the morning she will regret lying here instead of cleaning herself off. Right now though she’s content for the first time since leaving the warehouse laboratory and is determined not to leave bed unless the world is ending.

With heavy eyelids and heavy limbs, Peggy lifts her arm and checks the watch she only now realizes she forgot to take off. 1:57 A.M.

Peggy stares at the ceiling, willing away the stinging pressure growing behind her eyes. She knows she can’t truly blame him, but _damn it_ , she is going to kill Howard.

She feels hollow, and cold -- she half wishes Jarvis _had_ stayed on top of her, if only because she’s too tired to crawl under the bedcovers.

“I’m going to kill him,” Jarvis huffs from where he’s spread across the bed.

Peggy throws a pillow at him and snickers to herself.

*******

“They must have made it wrong,” Jarvis says hoarsely, still sprawled across the foot of the bed three hours later. Peggy has been drifting in and out of sleep but never managed to settle into anything deeper. She suspects her partner hasn’t slept much either. “When they were replicating Howard’s formula. It was supposed to be a nerve gas of sorts.”

Peggy laughs a short, derisive laugh and props herself up against the head of the bed to look at him. “I do in fact remember the case at hand. And I have to say, nerve gas would have been the more desirable alternative in this situation.”

Jarvis rolls over, frowning at her. “That’s odd. I don’t recall any complaining last night,” he quips. Peggy bursts out laughing in spite of herself, earning her a tired smile from Jarvis.

Out of the corner of her eye, Peggy sees something glint. She tenses up, on guard and ready to attack, when she realizes it’s a bobby pin. She sees a few scattered across the floor and realizes with a sinking feeling where that trail leads – to a pile of stained and wrinkled clothing in the front hall.

When she turns back Jarvis is staring at her wristwatch.

“The maid arrives at 10,” he says. There’s a crease between his brows that she recognizes from the night before.

Peggy swallows. “And the florist usually by noon.”

Slowly, they get up and set to work.

******* 

Peggy thanks every lucky star she can recall that Miss Fry doesn’t notice her arrival back at the Griffith House. It’s bad enough she’s coming in as most of her housemates are heading out for the morning, but the slacks would probably send the landlady into fits.

Last night’s ruined skirt is currently stuffed down to the bottom of her work case. It’s the last thing Peggy wants in her possession right now, but compared to Jarvis winding up with it or the maid finding it, cleaning her own dirty laundry seemed the lesser evil.

Upon entering her room, Peggy kicks her briefcase under her bed, halfheartedly promising herself she’ll deal with its contents later. What she really wants is to take a bath, but instead she runs a shower. She took one already that morning, back at Stark’s penthouse, but it had been army-efficient, only enough time to get in, get clean, and get out. It had been cold, too, especially after she and Jarvis opened all the windows. They had called off the maid and cleaned the flat themselves before Peggy rang for a cab back to the Griffith.

He hadn’t offered to drive her anywhere, for which she was grateful. Maybe it’s the exhaustion, or maybe it’s the drugs still working their way out of her system, but she swore she could still see her lipstick prints on his face.

She’s sitting on her bed drying her hair, trying to plan her next move when someone raps on her door. It’s the rhythm from a popular tune Peggy knows she should know but doesn’t recognize. “It’s open,” she calls across the room. The door swings wide and hits the wall, but Peggy doesn’t hear footsteps.

“You, my dearest English, owe me big time.”

Peggy turns to see Angie taking up the whole doorway, posing like comic book hero – chin up, chest out, hands on her hips, lips curved in a self-satisfied smile.

Peggy finds herself smiling back. “I can guess why, but please do enlighten me on the details.”

Angie grins, ecstatic Peggy wants to hear her story, and kicks the door shut behind her.

“So it’s late, and I’m coming in off a double - what else is new, right? – and Fry corners me asking if I seen you. It’s close to curfew, and I think what the hell, if you make it you make it, but if you don’t I might as well do you a favor. So I burst out crying. I’m standing in the middle of the front hall bawling my eyes out, so now everyone’s staring at me and Fry, so of course she’s uncomfortable. I start in on this sob story about your cousin upstate getting hit by a truck, just _broadsided_ in bright day, and how you had to get up there ASAP because he’s the only family you have left. And you wanna know what the crazy part is?” Angie pauses to smirk. “The old bat actually bought it. If that ain’t truly a sign my talents are immense and being wasted, I don’t know what is.”

She leans on Peggy’s dresser and smiles a satisfied smile before turning her gaze back to Peggy.

“So, you wanna spill it?” Angie pauses for a moment, then tilts her head, examining Peggy. “You aren’t lookin’ so hot.”

The “I’m fine” she had prepared dies on Peggy’s lips. She’s just so tired, tired of lying to Angie, tired already of pretending last night hasn’t affected her.

The weight of the last day crashes down on her hard, and Peggy starts to cry. She sobs, a full-bodied sobbing she hasn’t experienced since Colleen died, and her already sore frame hurts even more. She half hates herself for crying in front of Angie, for dragging her into whatever new mess this is, but overwhelmingly she just doesn’t care anymore.

Angie’s arms are around her so fast Peggy’s head would be spinning if it weren’t already.

“I didn’t…” Peggy struggles to find the words she wants. “There wasn’t…” In the end, what she gets out is, “He has _a wife_.”

Angie moves one hand back to rub in circles between Peggy’s shoulder blades. “Oh sweetie. You didn’t know?”

 _She thinks we’ve been having an affair_ passes through Peggy’s mind before she realizes with a start that that’s exactly where their relationship has ended up.

Peggy shakes her head. “I knew,” she admits, “I just… didn’t fully realize until now… Oh that must sound silly.” Angie doesn’t say anything for once, letting Peggy take the time to gather her thoughts. “It never occurred to me something this unfortunate would happen.”

Angie pulls away, holding Peggy at arms length. The look in her eyes is murderous.

“Did he knock you up? ‘Cause if he did, Peg, I swear to God—“

“ _No_ , Angie.” Her friend’s outburst startles a laugh out of Peggy. “It’s not that… at least I hope not.” She’s been trying very, _very_ hard not to think about the lack of protection last night.

Angie’s scowl darkens.

“It’s just…” Peggy picks her words slowly, carefully. “I wasn’t thinking straight. I made… a series of decisions that at the time seemed good, and it’s only now I’m realizing how awful they truly were.”

Angie stares at her for a moment. “Jeez, English.” She actually sounds amused now, Peggy thinks. “You know, most girls ending an affair are a lot angrier at Mister Man. There’s a whole world of swearing and cussing you need to tap into, but no, you gotta be so articulate and ‘stiff upper lip, whatnot’ all the time.”

Peggy laughs again, and it sounds less watery than before. “Perhaps there will be swearing later, after I’ve lifted some of your schnapps.”

“Promise?” Angie smiles, then hugs Peggy again and doesn’t let go. Peggy squeezes the other woman tight, resting her forehead on Angie’s shoulder.

“We are talking about Mister Classy from the automat, right?” Angie asks. “Granted, I never see you stepping out with anybody else, but I gotta make sure I keep an eye on the right guy so I know which one to spill coffee on from here on out.”

Peggy manages one deep breath, then another. “I don’t imagine you’ll be seeing much of him anymore, no.”

*******

Peggy knows she will have to move on from Steve someday. She’ll hold onto the memory of him forever, letting it linger more on some days, but she has a lot of living left to do. It isn’t impossible that she’ll find someone else to make her happy in a similar way. When the time was right, she knew she could be strong and carry on.

Now was not the right time. Steve’s death is still fresh in her mind, still something she finds herself thinking of day after day. She still misses him terribly, an ache she knows will fade over time, but it hasn’t yet.

Moving on with a married man was an entirely different problem. Peggy would have appreciated more time to catalogue her emotions regarding Jarvis. She trusts him tentatively and likes him as a person. Spending time with him isn’t a chore, and while she never wishes they were married she had wondered more than once before their encounter what it would be like to have him in her bed.

It was unfortunate then, to have that question answered, thereby complicating all the other already messy feelings she had regarding him. How was one expected to transition from “we might possibly be friends” to “we had sex for nearly four hours?” It certainly isn’t something she can ask a friend for advice on (although she suspects Angie might have a related story up her sleeve).

She wonders if Jarvis has told Anna, if he’s told _Howard._ Somehow she knows he hasn’t.

The goon they cornered is still in the tank when she arrives at work Monday morning. He sang like a canary even before Thompson brought out the stick, but it wasn’t anything useful, not for Peggy anyway, no leads on where his boss obtained Stark’s formula. At least the memory of a brunette British woman pistol-whipping him seems to have escaped the kid.

After hours, Peggy tracks down and reclaims three more of Howard’s stolen inventions that week. It’s satisfying, but it doesn’t quite scratch the itch. She knows it’s selfish – she’ll only get him hurt again – but she misses working alongside someone.

She considers phoning Jarvis more than once but tells herself each time she needs more space, just a bit more time and space, before she can ring him up.

(She never does call him.)

*******

In the end they only manage five days without contact.

Peggy enters the L&L Automat Thursday night after a particularly decent day at work. There had been nothing great about it, but it wasn’t horrible, and some days that’s the best she can hope for. Peggy stands in the entryway, scanning the room to see if Angie is working, when she notices the dark-haired man in a nice suit seated with his back to her. He is, naturally, in the booth behind her usual spot.

Peggy stands in the entryway a few seconds longer, then proceeds to her booth.

She assumes Jarvis wants to be the first to talk (she certainly didn’t ask him to meet her there), but the minutes stretch on and neither of them speaks. He doesn’t ask about work or the Griffith, and her go-to conversation starter - “How is your wife?” – seems crass in the face of what they need to discuss. Peggy’s grateful they’re not sitting in the same booth; it’s uncomfortable enough watching him fidget in her peripheral vision.

Peggy glances toward the kitchen and smiles to herself. It’s a good thing Jarvis isn’t drinking coffee because Angie looks like she might smash his head in with the pot if he were to ask for a refill. Angie looks like she might murder him regardless.

Fortunately, that’s when Jarvis decides to break their impasse.

“May I speak with you in private?” he murmurs over his left shoulder. He sounds as calm and collected as ever. Peggy feels a pang of jealousy before reminding herself she wasn’t the only one shaken by their tryst. After all, the telephones work both ways.

Peggy nods before realizing he probably didn’t see her. “Are you parked nearby? I find I quite fancy a drive.” She stands and walks out of the automat, not waiting for him to follow. She knows he will.

*******

There’s an unmarked folder on the passenger’s seat. When Peggy flips through it she finds more information about Howard’s formula, the supposed nerve agent that mutated into whatever aphrodisiac had hit them the week before. She already gathered most of the information on her own, but she skims it forward and backward to be doing something as Jarvis drives them out of the city in silence. She doesn’t know where they’re going, and she suspects he doesn’t either.

“It’s a good thing what we encountered wasn’t the original formula,” Peggy says idly. “We might never have seen Mr. Stark outside his bedroom again.”

Out of the corner of her eye she sees Jarvis smirk. He doesn’t return the quip like usual though.

“Have you told Howard we found this particular invention yet?” Peggy prods, finding herself desperate for a response. (If he would only look at her… she isn’t sure what she would tell him now.)

Jarvis’s nods, his eyes never leaving the road. “He is aware we found the written formula and a shoddy laboratory, but as far as he knows the manufactured samples failed to produce the desired effects.”

Peggy stiffens at his poor choice of words.

“And Anna?” Peggy asks, her voice as neutral as possible. “What does she know?”

Jarvis’s stony expression crumbles. He looks so abjectly _sad_ Peggy has to marvel at it. She’s never seen him upset, not even when he was talking about an invention that could wipe out city blocks, and Peggy hates that she keeps hurting the people who want to help her. As quickly as he cracked though, Jarvis regains his composure, slanting Peggy a forlorn smile.

“My wife is no fool, Miss Carter.”

The memory of her nails scratching Jarvis’s sides comes back to Peggy like a slap in the face.

“I have to tell her.” Jarvis’s tone leaves no room for argument, not that Peggy would argue him on this.

“The truth, you mean.” It isn’t a question. “About why we were together in the first place.”

Jarvis hesitates before nodding. “The whole truth.”

Secretly, Peggy wonders if Anna will accept it, no matter how much she loves her husband. Strange as his errands for Howard undoubtedly are, “my boss asked me to assist in recovering his stolen inventions, one of which backfired and forced me to sleep with this woman” requires more suspension of disbelief than “I had an affair.”

“Will you require my assistance?” Peggy asks.

“Eventually, yes,” he replies.

Peggy clears her throat. “All right then. Let’s go.”

Jarvis whips around to look at her, almost missing a stop. “What, _now_?”

“We’re in the car, and you’ve made up your mind,” Peggy reasons. “There’s no need to drag our feet.”

Jarvis frowns at her. “Perhaps it has escaped your notice,” he says, “but this is not entirely about _my_ feelings.”

Peggy rolls her eyes. “I hardly think you need my permission to speak with your wife.”

“In this instance I feel I do,” Jarvis replies. “Or rather, not your permission but your acceptance. I was hoping to repair our relationship before I told Anna everything. Before I said anything that would jeopardize your investigation or personal life.”

“You believe _this_ will be easier?” Peggy asks dryly.

Jarvis shrugs broadly. “Unless you’re planning on sharing my bed from now on instead.” Peggy glowers at him across the darkened cab. “Right, too soon. My marriage may be in a worse state of disrepair at the moment, but Anna and I have a foundation of trust. We have worked toward understanding one another.  The relationship you and I have is more… precarious. We haven’t known one another very long, haven’t laid the same groundwork, if you will.  Know that, if possible, I would like us to resume being colleagues -- friends, even.”

Peggy wants that too, wants to fix their burgeoning partnership more than anything, but when she looks at him she still feels the warmth of his hands on her and the hardness of his cock in her, and she doesn’t know what to do. She knows she can’t brush it aside forever, though.

“How?” she replies.

Jarvis inhales slowly before answering. “I don’t know.”

“Well despite the compelling argument you raise,” Peggy says, her tone mocking him, “I think it would be in our best interest to terminate our partnership. I can recover the rest of Howard’s devices alone.”

Jarvis shakes his head, frowning. “I must disagree.”

“How can we keep working together knowing how much I hurt you?” Peggy asks, her temper bleeding into her tone more than she would like. “I keep getting you hurt. Maybe not physically, but certainly emotionally. I’ve complicated your relationship with your wife, to say the least, a complication which would not have occurred if you had not accompanied me.”

“I accompanied you,” Jarvis repeats, stressing the phrase. “You do realize this isn’t entirely your battle. I chose to help you recover Howard’s inventions, to continue helping you through the more trying times. I chose to go into the warehouse with you, and so we are in this together.” Peggy notices how tightly he’s gripping the steering wheel, his knuckles once again striped with white. “I understand why you might feel differently given your history, but if you are to hold one of us accountable for our actions the other night, then you need to hold both of us accountable. I only…”

Jarvis pauses, as if revising his next sentence. “I only believe you should think about what it is you feel before trying to attend to one more person’s problems. What you want going forward in our relationship and not what you believe Anna or I expect from you.”

Peggy grits her teeth. “I have already thought about it more than I could possibly wish to.”

Jarvis frowns. “I think I understand wh—“

“No, Mister Jarvis,” Peggy snaps, “you do not.” She knows he hasn’t wondered just how much of that night was the aphrodisiac and how much of it was genuinely wanting to hop into bed together.

There’s an uncomfortable pause, and then – “Edwin.”

Peggy shakes her head. “No. If we are to continue working together we need to establish firmer boundaries. It would serve us best to keep some semblance of professionalism here.”

Jarvis gives her a strange look that may or may not be amusement. “You’ve seen me bare as the day I was born. I don’t think ‘Edwin’ is going to be overly casual.”

They meet a car coming from the opposite direction, its headlights glinting off Jarvis’s wedding band. Peggy can’t stop staring at his hands. She can tell he’s staring at her, knows even before lifting her gaze to meet his.

“ _How_?” she asks again. “How do we work together knowing what it’s like to make love?”

“Peggy,” Jarvis says, and she knows that tone. She’s thankful they’ve moved back into complete darkness because she knows what she’ll see. Jarvis has never pitied her before; she doesn’t want to know what that looks like on him.

“Please, ‘Miss Carter’ is fine,” Peggy says, shaking her head. He watches her a moment longer before turning his gaze forward again.

“I’m afraid I don’t have a satisfactory answer for you, or for any of this,” Jarvis says finally in response to her questions. He pauses, frowning at the road ahead as if deciding something, then adds, “If I might be honest?”

“But not truthful?” Peggy needles. That finally gets a smile out of him, she’s pleased to note.

“Honest and truthful then,” Jarvis says before turning serious once more. He draws a steadying breath.

“You must understand, Miss Carter,” he begins. “I love my wife more than anything. And although I have always been fond of you, before this… altercation, I never once thought of you… in that way.”

He pauses a beat too long, and Peggy knows she should let it drop, but she can’t. Since they started working together there’s always something lurking in the shadows, and this one secret is so close to being acknowledged she can’t let it slip away. She needs to get it out in the open now before it ruins their relationship any more, even if part of her already knows what he’s trying not to say.

“And now, Mister Jarvis? How often do you think of me ‘that way’ now?”

He doesn’t answer immediately, either distracted by the road or simply pretending to be. Peggy waits, until finally he turns to meet her stare.

“Too often, Miss Carter,” he says. There’s lust in his eyes, but mostly regret. Peggy knows the feeling. Perhaps he understands more than she gives him credit for.

Jarvis swallows hard, the contrast of shadow and moonlight accentuating the bob of his Adam’s apple. “But it cannot happen again.”

Peggy turns away, looking forward out the windshield once more.

“And so it won’t.” After another short span of silence, she adds, “Edwin.”

Jarvis looks at her a moment longer, then nods and turns his attention back to the path ahead of them. They keep driving farther into the night.


End file.
